


A Day or 3 in the Life Of...

by feminaexlux



Series: In The Life Of... [1]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Body Swap, Gen, Minor Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Kagami Tsurugi, Yeah I'm using Dingo, lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:14:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25811152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feminaexlux/pseuds/feminaexlux
Summary: A Body Swap AU means misunderstandings galore
Relationships: Luka Couffaine & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Series: In The Life Of... [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1872670
Comments: 6
Kudos: 60
Collections: Crikey!  A Wild Dingo has Appeared!





	A Day or 3 in the Life Of...

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bloody_no_Kissu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bloody_no_Kissu/gifts).



> Part 1 of 2

“Hey.”

Marinette was still asleep sprawled out over her bed, sheets pushed off.

“Hey, wake up.” She felt someone jab her in the side, so Marinette grumbled and turned away from the annoyance. Oddly enough, that other voice sounded like Juleka. “Are you still Marinette?”

 _Wh-what? Oh no, that’s right_. Marinette slowly opened her eyes and looked around. She was in Luka’s room. In his bed.

In his body. _Still_.

Which meant that the akuma she defeated yesterday (in Luka’s body, that was a surreal experience) wasn’t the origin of this problem. She bolted upright, startling Juleka. “Wh-what time is it?!”

“Still Mar, then,” Juleka sighed. “It’s so weird seeing Lu all… like you, I guess,” she mumbled, shaking her head. “Time for class.”

“Which class?” Marinette groaned, covering Luka’s face with Luka’s hands. “Oh god I… I probably… ugh.” She needed to… take a shower? Why was Luka’s face so itchy? Did Luka need to shave?

Why was Luka’s _crotch_ so itchy? Oh no. How did he deal with this _every day_?

She got a ping on her phone from Luka. They had swapped phones just in case.

Next class is ____, I’ll send you directions

Because Luka was in Marinette’s body.

This was a very surreal sort of nightmare, but… on one hand Luka seemed very… respectful of the situation. If it had to be anyone, and if it had to be any _boy_ in particular, Marinette had begrudgingly accepted that Luka was the best choice.

Neither Marinette nor Luka answered any calls but they kept sending out texts as needed. For the most part everyone around them didn’t find things too strange about either of them. No one but Juleka and Luka’s best friend figured it out for Marinette. Surprisingly, Alya immediately picked it up for Luka, but Alya never said a word to anyone else. Alya had followed enough akumas and spoke to enough victims to know that sometimes people were affected in deeply private ways.

But most people didn’t notice the switch, which was a relief. Except it was almost heartbreaking that _Adrien_ didn’t seem to notice a change.

“Okay, Marinette, you can do this,” she said, Luka’s voice coming back instead of her own. She still needed to get used to how different his voice sounded when she was in his body.

thanks Luka. Here’s my schedule…  
how are you doing?

Fine, are you okay?

He seemed to be managing things for her well enough. Marinette wasn’t sure if she should be upset or not, but he’d made and _sold_ the excuse that Marinette had caught a cold and was feeling under the weather. That’s why “Marinette” had been so… “chillax”, as Alya called it.

as ok as we’ll be

The only bad thing was he hadn’t been nearly as concerned with dressing the part of a Fashion Designer (still in university) as Marinette had hoped for. He had just kinda thrown on whatever seemed comfortable and left her tiny dormitory room. Maybe he might have a better idea today? Marinette wasn’t sure. Then again it didn’t feel right to expect that from Luka, except for what happened yesterday.

Chloe Bourgouis had stopped him in the afternoon and tried to ridicule him in front of the whole campus. Marinette was there to watch it unfold (mostly because Luka didn’t have anything scheduled at the time and Marinette was a natural busybody). Luka stood there calmly listening to Chloe provide a bulleted list of everything that had been such an atrocious fashion faux pas about lame Marinette Dupain-Cheng’s choice in clothing.

Luka had looked thoughtful while Marinette was _fuming_. Chloe couldn’t talk to Luka that way! Especially not when he was piloting her body!

Luka (as Marinette) had spoken up after thinking for a few seconds. “Interesting points. I’ll consider that. But next time you don’t have to be such a bitch about it.” He had adjusted the backpack and continued walking off, leaving Chloe and Sabrina (and everyone really) in a relatively stunned silence.

Well, okay, Marinette supposed that was handled… alright. Marinette probably would have sputtered and squawked and made _herself_ look worse but Luka seemed just… observant more than anything.

Now she was just overthinking. She shook her head to refocus on what to do next. _Take a shower, get dressed, I should get some breakfast maybe? Head to Luka’s class and maybe try to talk with Tikki after to figure out how the heck to break this… curse thing_. If it wasn’t the akuma yesterday… could it have been another akuma?

Empress was a trickier Butterfly user than Hawkmoth ever was, so maybe Empress had sent out a secondary akuma to wreak havoc more passively while the flashier one took Ladybug (or rather, Red Beetle for Luka’s body) and Chat Noir’s attention.

God, as if it wasn’t hard enough trying to get through university. Now she and Chat Noir had to deal with a villain that was smart enough to use _diversionary tactics_. She got into Luka’s class and sat at the back with Dingo, Luka’s best friend. “Hey Dingo,” Marinette sighed.

Dingo raised his heart-shaped sunglasses to his forehead and squinted at her. At Marinette in Luka’s body. “Hey babes,” he said casually. “Still a lil’ scrambled, ain'tcha?” Marinette just nodded sadly. “Aww, come on baby girl don’t worry. I’m sure Ladybub and Cat Nerd will figure it out!”

“God, I hope so,” she said, leaning forward on the desk and dropping Luka’s head in his arms. Luka would look like he’d passed out to anyone else but at least Marinette been recording the lessons on her phone for Luka so he’d be able to catch up. That had been what they agreed to when they first found out after waking up that they’d been swapped yesterday morning.

Now that was such a painfully awkward memory. Thankfully Luka was cool enough to accept her pathetic and inane attempt at an excuse to swap earrings. “ _They’re a family heirloom_ ,” Marinette had pleaded. “ _I mean, they mean a whole lot to me! The **me** me, you know? I… **I** need to be the one to wear them_?”

Marinette ended up being more thankful than anything that it had been Luka that fate had bound her to. He had just nodded and gently took the black studs off, handing it over to her without complaint.

She wasn’t going to assume it meant anything more than his taking her word for it. If he knew she’d been Ladybug all this time, that'd… that’d be _something_ , and that something wasn’t _good_. Probably.

Dingo leaned in and whispered “How’s Lulu?”

Marinette rolled her eyes. “I thought you and Luka text each other all the time.”

“Pfft, like he’d _say_ anything,” Dingo snorted. He hid a smile from Marinette. “But you got a _way_ with him, yanno? Maybe that _feminine wiles_ of yours.”

“Yeah, like I have any of that right now,” Marinette rolled her eyes again. “It’s just so awkward though. He’s doing so much better than I am and I'm… I just hope I’m not messing anything up for him.” She sighed and sat up only to slump down low in the chair.

“You’re alright, Mari. Well. Probably. Imma say that maybe this whole body swap thing hopefully won’t be permanent or anything you know? Me and Lulu have a gig coming up in a few weeks. You see I’m thinking maybe you didn’t pay attention much to his ’ _guitar lessons_ ’,” Dingo had said with air quotes. “Not sure Luka was really teaching you at his best either,” he snickered.

“Oh, oh God, I hope it’s not permanent! Oh God Dingo why did you have to go and even _suggest_ that?” Marinette groaned, putting Luka’s head in Luka’s hands. “This is already pretty stressful! Ugh, I wish I knew how to deal with it like Luka does.”

Dingo snorted. “Trust me, he’s 100% as freaked out as you are.”

“No way.”

“Yeah? Next time you see him, you take a good look at his hands.”

* * *

Okay, Marinette wanted to meet up so they could swap notes for the day. This was fine, this was perfectly reasonable. She had wanted to do that yesterday and that went fine, just fine. Everything was just fine.

Luka wasn’t going to mention that maybe he spent maybe an hour staring at… himself? Well, okay, at Marinette. He hadn’t been sure it’d be comfortable going to bed with her hair still up in pigtails. When he pulled off the hairbands as gently as he could and her hair came undone like it did, it caught his eye and he looked up at the mirror and saw that Marinette was…

 _Gorgeous_ , that was the word.

He’d lost his ability to think for a while. She’d never let her hair loose in front of anyone and he had no idea why. He knew she was already pretty and cute and adorable but… something about the loose hair took it up a couple of notches.

So yeah, he wouldn’t mention that little detail to her. He’d be seen as kind of a hypocrite after he told her he didn't… didn’t really think about her that way. God, why did he say that? “ _Bodies are bodies, Marinette,_ ” he had told her, when she had freaked out about him having to… do anything in the bathroom.

He’d meant it at the time. He’d treat her body like a temple. He did. He really tried to anyway. He just also… _appreciated_ like any good tourist would, maybe? Oh God that was creepy, _stop thinking about it Couffaine_.

Okay, she was going to get here in a few minutes.

He wasn’t going to mention anything about her hair. He wasn’t sure how to get it back into the pigtails again but he tied it back in low ponytail. Hopefully she’d be okay with that? He wanted to keep things fairly consistent for her, and he’d never seen her _not_ have her hair tied so he managed a ponytail.

He also tried dressing up, sort of. It hadn’t been at all what he intended but he got _more_ attention yesterday trying to dress casually rather than less. That… Bourgeois lady had tried to bitch at him for wearing track pants or something. Along with a hoodie. Luka was honestly baffled at how seriously Chloe took everything about Marinette’s clothes. He had heard from Juleka that Chloe was a major pain in the ass, but having to deal with it in person was… an experience. And it was over clothes? Did Chloe Bourgeois have _nothing_ better to do?

He knew Marinette had a little drama and spitfire in her too, but the way Marinette used _her_ force of personality was to _help_ everyone.

Luka loved her for that. Still.

But she wasn’t supposed to know that. He did his best to let her know it back 5 years ago when he was 16 and a bit less reserved with his stupid music puns, but she wasn’t into him. That was fine, that was totally fine.

Except maybe it wasn’t entirely. And this? This body swap thing? Probably pure karma for him just… being an idiot or something. Or being a complete and utter… coward. Now Hawkmoth or Empress or Karma or whatever spiteful Divine Entity had punished him by putting his mind in her body.

The really unfair bit was that she was in his. Marinette didn’t deserve any of this crap. Still, it wasn’t like he was Ladybug and could fix everything with a Lucky Charm. God he had no idea how to fix this, and it hadn’t been the akuma yesterday!

“Hey?” It was something like his voice coming from nearby. Luka looked up and saw… himself, looking somewhat amused. “Did you wait long?”

“Not really. What’s up?”

Marinette, in his body, sat down and pulled out her phone. “Just wanted to send over the class notes before I forgot. Also I wanted to check in and um, I guess, see how it was going with you?”

“It’s fine.” It was fine. It was all just fine. He finally noticed she was staring at his hands, and he looked down and saw that he’d been tapping the little café table with her pen. Apparently hard enough that he made a slight indentation to the wood top. Whoops. “Oh.” He stopped and put the pen back in Marinette’s bag. “Sorry about that.”

“Hey, Luka, you know it's… Are you sure you’re okay?”

He stared up… into his own face. God that was going to take some getting used to… then again he really didn’t want to get used to having a literal out-of-body experience. Somehow even though Luka was a generally expressive guy, Marinette being the pilot meant that the facial expressions on him were slightly… more? Maybe not exaggerated but definitely more obvious. He actually thought he looked kinda goofy and winced. “Uh, just… it’s still weird. That’s all.”

“Yeah. I’m really hoping it’s something Ladybug and Chat Noir can fix. And soon.”

“Oh, did something come up?” Luka asked.

“Er, um. Well, no?” Marinette stumbled. “I just meant I'd… not that your body’s like _bad_ or anything but I’d love to be back in my own body! I’m sure you hate being in me.” Marinette choked. “I-I-I mean… oh god.” She facepalmed. “A-anyway, ahem. Yeah.” She pushed her phone out toward him. “Here, uh, just so you’re not missing anything relevant!” She laughed nervously.

“Do you think it’s actually an akuma?” Luka asked, suddenly hit with a suspicion. “I’m wondering why the Ladybugs didn't… fix this. Do you know anyone else that’s going through this?”

Marinette blinked, then frowned, putting a finger to her chin. His chin. Whatever. “No, actually. Not even the LadyBlog mentioned anything like this. But what else could it be?”

“I don’t know. I’m throwing it out there just in case it’s not the obvious answer. I don’t have a suggestion on what it could be though.”

“Ugh,” Marinette groaned, resting his head on the table. “Why is this happening…” She raised his head back up. “Oh, good choice in clothes, by the way.”

He stifled a laugh. “Thanks. Didn’t want to get you in trouble with Chloe again.”

“Pfft, ignore her. She’s just petty.”

“Did you have to deal with that before?” Luka asked, feeling slightly guilty that he’d unintentionally made Marinette an easy target.

“For the past 10 years or so, yeah. Don’t worry, she’s always been kind of a bi–bothersome.” Marinette had caught herself in time before uttering anything _untoward_. “Where’d you find that jacket? I thought I lost it a while back,” Marinette giggled.

Oh crap. He probably should have thought about what to say about all this but he had… he really had gone through her closet and dresser trying to find something that he thought Marinette would wear. He wasn’t a designer in any sense of the word, but he kind of remembered Juleka talking about some of the clothes and the styles she’d modeled when she got steady gigs from a punk design house.

He also figured that Marinette would look good in red and black.

It’d been a somewhat self-indulgent early morning of him trying out a few different outfits Marinette had, and trying to figure out what she looked best in. He had grabbed a red half-jacket and a slim, short black dress and almost tried wearing heels but went for the practical ballet flats Marinette usually wore. He wanted to be stylish, not accident-prone.

“Hey?” Marinette waved a hand in front of him.

“Sorry, was trying to remember where,” he smiled. “But I can’t. I’m just glad you approve,” he said. Oh, that… that was another thing. “And… a couple of other people approved as well.” This was going to hurt. “Adrien said you looked lovely in this.” She did, but it felt kind of wrong to say that while he was inhabiting her body.

“O-oh really?” Marinette had blushed and tried to cover it up by coughing. “That’s nice!”

This was really going to hurt. “Yeah. He asked you out, by the way, but I said you… you’d think about it. He says he’s good next weekend for dinner and a movie.”

Marinette looked pale. Which was pretty odd in his skin tone. “We have a problem,” Marinette groaned. She took her phone back from in front of Luka and scrolled to her messages.

Hi Marinette, it turns out that I didn’t have next weekend free. Let’s meet up tomorrow!

“I didn’t know what Adrien was talking about until you just explained it,” Marinette said anxiously.

“Maybe you should tell him no?” Luka half-asked, already knowing that she’d never shoot down Adrien. He knew it was the one chance she had to finally have Adrien notice her as more than _just-a-friend_. Only Luka was the one that looked like Marinette right now.

“I-I think… I mean we could… we could wake up back to normal tomorrow?” she laughed, brushing hair away from her… his face in a nervous gesture. She stopped, staring down at something. He looked at the same place and noticed she was staring at his… her hand.

Luka had been unconsciously tightening Marinette’s hands into fists so hard they had white knuckles.

“You're… right. I should say no, I’ll go ahead and say no.” Marinette said simply. “If we’re still in… this mess tomorrow it's… not fair to you.” She smiled down sadly at Luka, reaching out with his hands to unclench and massage hers. It felt… intimate. And… it felt like he was asking Marinette to keep silently suffering like she’d been all these years. He knew how much that sucked.

“I’ll do it,” Luka said impulsively. “If we’re still… like this tomorrow, I’ll go ahead and… make it work.”

“Luka, you don’t need to…” Marinette trailed off, their hands still intertwined.

He tried to smile. “Hey, I think it’s time, right? Finally Adrien’s noticed. You gotta take this chance.”

Marinette looked back down at their hands. “Adrien noticed… the outfit,” she muttered to herself. “And he noticed _you_ …”

“Mar–”

“But… if you’re willing to help me out, I… I think this is a good opportunity. I’ve always wanted to see what would happen, and… maybe this is a blessing. You won’t be a wreck like I’d be, anyway!”

Luka had his doubts.

* * *

Marinette had a plan. She had almost decided on an outfit for Luka to wear except… well that wasn’t what Adrien had noticed. She had asked if Luka wanted to style himself again, but… his reply was oddly sweet. Luka had just said “This is _your_ date. I want you to feel comfortable and be happy with it. That includes wearing whatever _you_ want me to.”

It wasn’t as if she hadn’t already planned out the whole date thing in her head about 25 million times and 25 million variations. She knew exactly how she wanted it to go: what to wear, which movie to see, where to go for dinner that encompassed both convenience and privacy. She’d tried to be considerate of Adrien Agreste, semi-permanent bachelor supermodel (and how it might look to other people). She had checked the weather and the sunset time and if certain places were open for the day and if everything was walkable. She just had to adjust for the fact that it was Luka that would actually be on the date and not her.

Actually, if she thought about it, it was a lot better this way for multiple reasons. She’d be free to go out and do her Ladybug duties if the need arose, and Luka was a mirror-surface lake compared to her turbulent white water nerves.

Marinette and Luka had agreed on a somewhat discreet earpiece if there was something that had to be communicated immediately. Marinette didn’t want to admit it to herself, but… there was something about this whole situation where she felt… her future was safe in Luka’s capable hands. She owed him big time.

Which was why when the date ended, she was so, so thankful that she’d been in Luka’s body instead of her own.

* * *

“Hey, that was fun!” Adrien said cheerfully. “Next time we should bring Alya and Nino with us.”

That sounded… wrong. At least, that sounded like it didn’t belong in a romantic date. “… What do you mean?” Luka asked. He’d been doing everything Marinette had asked and it still lead to _this_? Did Luka really ruin this somehow?

“It was great to hang out, just the two of us, but I think the more the merrier right?”

Luka was confused. “… Hang out? This wasn’t a date?”

“Yeah, like a friend-date, right? You’d been so down recently that Nino said I should take you out to cheer you up!”

Oh jeez. “Are… are you kidding me, Agreste? You invite a girl out to dinner and a movie and you say it’s _not_ a date?” Luka asked, an edge of acidity in his voice. “How could you lead a girl on like that?”

Adrien looked taken aback. “We’ve been friends forever, Marinette. You’ve been feeling down. I thought friends did things like this to cheer you up?” Adrien started looking panicked. “Oh no, did… did you think this was a date? I-I thought Kagami was just being weird when I said you wouldn’t think of me like that! I should have listened–”

“What the hell does Kagami have to do with all of this?”

“ _I’m dating Kagami_ , Marinette! I’ve been with Kagami ever since _you_ got us together! That’s why I didn’t think you’d mistake this for a date!”

“Luka…” he heard Marinette sigh shakily over the earpiece. But no, this was… this was bad. And Luka was angry.

“For a man who’s a freaking model and supposed to be meticulously worried about your image, can’t you pull your head out of your ass for one second and take a good look at what’s happening? You **do not** take a girl out to dinner alone, _especially_ a girl that’s been in love with you for ages, and say that it’s _not_ a date **after** it’s done.”

“’ _In love_ ’?! Wh-what? Marinette, I'm… I’m sorry that it happened this way but… I don’t understand. I’m with Kagami!”

The Couffaine Chaos energy nearly overtook Luka and he realized he had drawn back Marinette’s arm and fist in preparation for decking the ignorant blond. But… this wasn’t going to help. Luka lowered her arm and started breathing to calm himself down, realizing a little after the fact that Marinette was yelling at him over the earpiece. “Okay. Fine. If you wanna play it this way, Adrien, fine. I have to tell you, though. I hope you treat Kagami better than this.” Luka got Marinette’s jacket back from Adrien and threw her evening bag over his… her shoulder. “I’m out. I’ll make my way back home.”

“Marinette, I’m really sorry!” Adrien yelled after her, trying to grab her arm.

Luka spun back around, batting Adrien’s reaching arm away and said “Shut it if you know what’s good for you, Agreste. Don’t touch me.”

* * *

Marinette slumped down in her chair outside the theater. _Well, that could have gone **worse** , maybe?_ she thought at herself. She shook her head and jumped up, running after Luka, who was more or less stomping away in her body. If she’d been able to see clearly she might have commented to herself that basically _everyone_ in Luka’s path dove out of the way of his murder walk. But she had… some problems seeing that had nothing to do with the nighttime or Luka’s vision and more to do with the fact that she’d been crying.

Because she made Luka have to go through that.

Because she felt more _relief_ than anything, after the fact.

Not because of the final nail in her Agreste Infatuation coffin sinking in and closing off forever her already long-dead feelings over Adrien.

“Luka!” She yelled at him. With his voice. “Luka, wait.”

He spun and looked back at Marinette. At himself. He was… he was both angry and extremely worried. “Marinette, I am so sorry,” he said to her. “I… I’m sorry. I messed this up for you. God I am so–”

Marinette started laughing. She wasn’t sure what had come over her, but Luka was actually acting like _she_ would have and it looked… _comical_. Because he did nothing wrong. She brushed the tears from Luka’s face and sighed. “No, don’t be sorry, Luka. You didn’t mess anything up. I… I think we were set up!” Marinette laughed again. “God, I’m glad that’s over,” she breathed out.

“Are… you alright?” Luka asked, as still and as quiet as a mouse. He tightened his grip on her bag and she knew he’d been trying to hide his discomfort.

“I'm… I’ll be fine,” Marinette giggled, a spillover of the increasingly bizarre reaction of hers. “I’m just… I gotta take a few to um… process this,” she continued giggling.

Luka continued holding her bag in a death grip. “Alright. I'm… we should head home.”

“No, wait,” Marinette said, reaching for… her own hand. “Wait.” She gently unfurled Luka’s grip and straightened out the fingers, massaging the hand again. “We should talk. Let's… let’s get a drink. Like a smoothie or something, not like at a bar. I’m not sad, really.”

Luka looked skeptical and Marinette had to laugh. The less exaggerated doubt on her own face was somehow more effective than the overly dramatic disbelief she usually had. “Sure,” he said, still doubtful. “But… Juleka’s probably at Rose’s right now. Let’s head back to my place and we’ll talk there.”

“Better yet,” Marinette said, her giggling finally under control. “Let’s go back to _my_ place.” She didn’t have to worry about roommates, at least.

“Hey. I really am sorry about the whole thing,” Luka said quietly.

Marinette smiled at him. “Luka, you're…” She pulled him into a hug. “You’re wonderful, I hope you know that. You did exactly what I asked for. None of this is your fault.” God she was so tiny in his arms. “Thank you. For everything.”

“Right,” he said slowly. “Okay. Let’s go get some smoothies.”


End file.
